Kansas Notes: Payback Slows Busch’s Title Chase

Kyle Busch's past caught up with him at Kansas Sunday. (File photo courtesy of NASCAR)

Kansas City, Kan. – David Reutimann dealt Kyle Busch a blow to Busch’s championship hopes Sunday at Kansas Speedway after Busch delivered a blow to Reutimann’s back bumper that sent him spinning.

On lap 53, Reutimann got loose in turn two and Busch got into his left rear quarterpanel.

“He wrecked, me, he just drove over me,” Reutimann said. “I’m on the bottom of the racetrack, he’s got the whole top of the racetrack to go to and he run over me. I got wrecked. I mean, you guys can sugarcoat it all you want but he wrecked me.

“You can tell me how bad he wants it, how hard he drives, how much he wants it above everyone else. That’s all fine. You guys can tell that, but he just wrecked me.”

And Reutimann wrecked Busch back on lap 156. The impact made it look like Reutimann got the worst of it – he spun around – but it knocked the rear end housing of Busch’s car askew. After the race, Busch took responsibility for the first incident.

“The guy was loose, he said it on the radio and slid up off the bottom and I got into him unintentional and spun him out,” Busch said. “My fault 100 percent. Then the retaliation. For a guy that’s in the Chase and that’s racing for something – you know, he’ll be here next year. He could have wrecked me in the first 26 races next year, that would have been fine.”

While Busch thought it was unfair for a driver not in the Chase to retaliate like that against a driver in the Chase, Reutimann obviously felt differently.

“I’m going to put it to you this way; I don’t care if you’re in the Chase or not, you need to think about who you’re running over when you’re running over them,” Reutimann said. “I don’t care who you are. If you’re in the chase you have as much responsibility to drive guys with respect, as I do with everybody else. So you know what, I don’t know what to tell you guys. If you want me to feel bad about what happened today, yeah I feel bad, yeah but our car got wrecked and that ruined our day. That’s what I feel bad about.

Busch ended up in 21st and is seventh in the points standings, 80 points behind points leader Jimmie Johnson.

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Bounce back: After nearly going two laps down, Clint Bowyer was able to dig out a 15th place finish at his home track.

Bowyer was terrible for the first half of the race, running in 31st, but was able to catch a caution after working his way up to be the first car a lap down and got the Lucky Dog.

But since nine Chasers finished ahead of him, he’s still in 12th, 252 points behind Johnson. And his car was chosen again as the “random” in NASCAR’s inspection process.

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Grandstand report: The estimated attendance for Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway was 100,000. The grandstands – which were at approximately 80 percent of capacity – have a listed capacity of 81,600.